Wednesday, Jan. 31 - “In the News…”

HEALTH
Md. Pushes Expanded Medical Coverage
“Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) will call for expanded coverage of the state’s 780,000 uninsured — one in seven residents — in his State of the State address today, aides said… General Assembly leaders are offering more ambitious plans that would add a $1 tax on cigarettes to pay for [further expansions.] … Maryland would join Massachusetts, California, Vermont and a handful of other states that are mapping a path toward universal coverage in the absence of action by Congress or the Bush administration.

COMMUNITIES
Va. House Approves Bill On Illegal Immigration
Proposal would “strip charities and other organizations of state and local funding if any of the money is used to provide services to immigrants in the country illegally.” Quote: “[The Salvation Army] will have no choice but to turn people away if Miller’s bill is approved.”

PHILANTHROPY
Gates Foundation CEO Answers Questions About Grant Making, Investments

Tuesday, Jan. 30 - In the News…

EDUCATION
Board of Ed Presents Alternative to Takeover
“[T]he school board unanimously passed the “Emergency Student Achievement Act of 2007.” The legislation…would allow the school board to retain power over its budget and the construction and renovation of school buildings and give a new State Department of Education the ability to open charter schools.”

DC VOTE
District of Columbia: Mayor Fenty makes securing Congressional vote top priority
“DC Vote has been awarded a $250,000 grant from the Public Welfare Foundation” [WG member]

COMMUNITY
Fairfax Shines in Jobs Report
“County emerges as a powerhouse that far outpaces Montgomery County and rivals D.C. as region’s economic core, according to a federal report.”

Monday, Jan. 29 - In the News…

PHILANTHROPY
Area foundations grow in number and resources with regional support
“With some of the wealthiest, fastest-growing counties in the country located around Washington, foundation giving in the area should continue to grow in the years to come, said Tamara Copeland, president of the Washington Grantmakers.”

EDUCATION
Better School Reform - What to Try Before A Mayoral Takeover
Among DC Councilmember Carol Schwartz’s suggestions: 1) Give the Board of Education three years to “achieve measurable improvements.” 2) Give Mayor Fenty control over one underperforming highschool (and all of its feeders schools) and evaluate his performance after three years.

HEALTH
Psychiatric System Crunch Worsens
Waits for Beds Increasingly Exceed Md.’s Legal Maximum

COMMUNITIES
How many homeless?
“The [annual Jan. 25] count is mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for organizations that receive its grants. Last year, the nine municipalities that make up the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments [WG Member] tallied 12,085 homeless region wide… Social workers universally agree that [the count] is always on the low side.”

Friday, Jan. 26 - In the News…

HEALTH
- Study: Living Near Freeways Hurts Kids’ Lungs
- Collection of Op-eds on President Bush’s Health Care Proposal

PHILANTHROPY
[OPINION] What Should Bill Gates Do?
John Entine, American Enterprise Institute, makes the case that “social investing” has a poor track record, and advises the Gates Foundation to ignore recent criticism.

COMMUNITIES
Job growth to give a kick to area housing
“Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) [WG member] predicts a 35 percent increase in households in this region along with job growth of 39 percent between 2005 and 2030.”

EDUCATION
Fairfax Resists ‘No Child’ Provision
The Fairfax County School Board last night defied the U.S. Department of Education… “It is wrong for our students to take a test they are predisposed to fail…”

Thursday, Jan. 25 - In the News…

EDUCATION
Board Wants to Attack School Repairs in ‘All-Out Blitz’
DC School Board President Robert C. Bobb: “We have to attend to [students'] hygienic needs so they can concentrate on learning. It doesn’t make sense to wait several years…”
Mary Filardo, 21st Century School Fund thinks the program makes sense, in spite of the fact that ”the system will duplicate costs when it modernizes some of the same schools in a few years.”

Annapolis High Staff Must Reapply for Jobs
“…a drastic move to restructure the school after it failed to meet federal No Child Left Behind guidelines for four years straight.”

PHILANTHROPY
“Filmanthropy” … and the Ubiquitous Kevin Bacon
onPhilanthropy asks: “Has documentary film become an investment option for wealthy donors who want greater social bang for their buck?” The Washington Post reports on Ted Leonsis’ new term: Filmanthropy. Meanwhile, Kevin Bacon launches SixDegrees.org, urging: “Be a celebrity for your cause.”

DC VOTE
House Grants DC Delegate Symbolic Voting Rights
“If the delegates’ votes provide the margin of victory, their votes are thrown out and representatives revote without them.” The push for a full vote continues.

Wednesday, Jan. 24 - In the News…

HEALTH
Prince George’s Co. Health Crisis (click and scroll down)
“Hospital executives have said the hospital needs $5 million by Friday or it will be forced to issue an alert that it will close in 60 days.” The hospital serves 180,000 patients a year, many of them poor and uninsured.

Should the vaccine for the sexually-transmitted HPV be mandatory for 11-year old girls? (Parents would be able to opt-out.)
- Virginia House Committee Approves Measure
- point: The HPV Vaccine Is Vital to the District’s Health (Jan. 21) 
- counterpoint: Force Is Not the Only Way to Administer a Vaccine

American Legacy Foundation [WG Member] Funded Web Site Targets Corporate Influence Over Public Health
“The web site targets corporate practices that harm health across six industries – automobile food, alcohol, pharmaceutical, firearms and tobacco.”

COMMUNITY
Fenty, Other Mayors Decry Gun Trafficking
“Fenty said that most homicide cases in the District involve illegal guns and that many illegal firearms come from surrounding jurisdictions. Of 169 homicides in the District last year, Fenty said, 137 involved illegal firearms.” Fenty: “You need to have the federal government have one standard for dealing with illegal guns.”

NO TAXATION WITHOUT…
a Commemorative Quarter!
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

in the news

Young Donors In Training
Helping young people with financial means to think about social change.
“I was so nervous,” says Thalheimer, now 24. “I had never talked about this stuff. I had never been in a room with people where I’d said: I have a lot of money. I have money to give away.”

As mayors become leaders of school reform, cities look to New York
The Economist provides some background/context for Mayor Fenty’s schools proposal…

Public-private group helps Maryland families stay together
“Founded in 1986 with funds from the Aaron Straus and Lillie Straus Foundation Inc., the Goldseker Foundation [WG Member] and Maryland’s Department of Human Resources, Friends of the Family [works statewide to] provide free, full-service, parent-empowerment and child care services for challenged parents of children 3 years of age.”

Mayors Taking Over Schools

 The Economist provides some background/context for Mayor Fenty’s schools proposal:

As mayors become leaders of school reform, cities look to New York
WHEN Adrian Fenty became mayor of Washington, DC, this month, he immediately announced a plan to take over the city’s schools. He is not the first to propose such a scheme, and will not be the last. Although in most cities schools are run by an elected board, this is changing fast. Boston’s mayor began the trend of “mayoral control” in 1991: it has spread to Cleveland, Chicago and a dozen other cities and counties, including Los Angeles, where it is now the subject of a court battle. But it is Michael Bloomberg, who took charge of New York’s school system—the nation’s largest—in 2002, who has become the paradigm of the mayor-educator.

Philanthropists as Change Makers

If you attended our annual meeting a few weeks ago, you’ll recall Ralph Smith’s charge for philanthropists to be not only grant makers, but change makers, in the effort to eradicate inter-generational poverty.  Speaking about building common sense consensus for change, he said:

“[P]olitics creates a level of divisiveness that sometimes becomes enduring. Policy, on the other hand, requires a search for common ground. Good policy demands that we figure out where we all agree. It’s hard work, and it is especially hard in today’s partisan atmosphere. But I will insist that this is where philanthropy has a real opportunity and genuine obligation to convene unlikely allies, and build consensus for change across the partisan political, ideological and geographic divides.”
[Full remarks here]

That point is well taken. As nonpartisan change-makers, our community has a great responsibility. It’s our job to gather folks around the table to focus on a simple question: What works and what doesn’t? We can help answer that question because, unlike politicians, we are able to take chances on funding innovation. Our world is the laboratory for social change–and as our grantees work to tackle persistent social problems (like inter-generational poverty), it’s our job to distill their findings and share those lessons with our public sector colleagues.

We are taking 2007 to engage our members, government agencies, and other stakeholders in planning our policy agenda. If you have suggestions for our policy agenda, or thoughts about the role of philanthropy in shaping public policy, please send them to WG’s Director of Public Policy Carolynn Mambu–or leave a comment here.

Best regards,
 
Tamara Lucas Copeland
President
Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers

in the news…

Summit planned to help D.C.’s disconnected youth
“A summit aimed at bringing together agencies and nonprofits that help troubled young people in the District is in the works as part of new Mayor Adrian Fenty’s first 100 days plan.”

Wanted: Low-Income High Achievers (Profile)
“The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation [WG Member] helps 4-year colleges recruit the brightest community-college students”

Breast cancer foundation marks anniversary with name change
“The nonprofit is celebrating its 25th year with a new name — Susan G. Komen for the Cure, an edgy new advertising campaign that includes T-shirts reading: ‘If you’re going to stare at my breasts, you could at least donate a dollar to save them,’ sales of pink promise rings and a pledge to raise another $1 billion in the next 10 years.”